Tsunami warning issued for Indian Ocean region after earthquake off East Timor coast
Earthquake of magnitude 6.4 strikes East Timor
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, but witnesses said the quake was felt strongly. "It's quite big, our staff ran out of the building because it was shaking," said, Francez Suni, director of information of East Timor's GMN TV, as reported by Reuters.
Tremors felt as far as Australia's Darwin island
Darwin resident Joel Willingale, who works in heavy manufacturing, said "it went on for about 30 seconds".
"The whole room shook and slammed down," he said. "We only really feel the effects of a quake occasionally, usually in the Banda Sea. But this one was a big one."
The Banda Sea lies north of Timor island.
Could generate tsunami in Indian Ocean Region : UN's GTWMS
The United Nations' tsunami monitoring agency warned that the quake "could generate a tsunami affecting the Indian Ocean region".
IOR lies in Pacific Ring of Fire
East Timor and neighbouring Indonesia straddle the so-called "Pacific Ring of Fire", a seismically active zone, where different plates on the earth's crust meet and create a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.
Destruction caused in 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami
In February, a 6.2-magnitude quake killed a dozen people when it struck Indonesia's North Sumatra island.
In 2004, a 9.1-magnitude quake hit the coast of Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 people throughout the region, including about 170,000 in Indonesia.
42 per cent people below poverty line in East Timor : World Bank
East Timor has a population of about 1.3 million and is Southeast Asia's youngest country, recently celebrating the 20th anniversary of its independence from Indonesia.
The mostly rural economy has been badly hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, with the World Bank saying 42 per cent of the population live below the poverty line.
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